It’s our great pleasure today to welcome Courtney Erwin as an IntLawGrrls contributor.

Courtney is an Affiliated Fellow at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Development at Leiden Law School currently pursuing a doctorate in international and comparative law. Her research focuses on the development of the human rights movement in Morocco with specific attention to the discourse around the abolition of the death penalty.

Prior to moving to Morocco to conduct this research, Courtney spent four years as the Legal Program Manager at Education Above All, a Qatar-based foundation dedicated to the promotion and protection of education in communities in crisis. While in that position, she led research, capacity building, and advocacy programs aimed at using international human rights, humanitarian, and criminal law to better protect students, teachers, schools, and universities in conflict areas. She also worked with the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack on an initiative to develop international Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict, which call for armed parties to avoid using educational buildings or making them targets of attack.

Courtney received her B.S. in Foreign Service and a certificate in Muslim–Christian Understanding from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service; her M.A. in Islamic Law from McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies; and her J.D. from Seattle University School of Law, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice.

Her first post will discuss the Safe Schools Declaration. Heartfelt welcome!